


344. the thief of fairytales

by piggy09



Series: The Sestre Daily Drabble Project [230]
Category: Orphan Black (TV)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-15
Updated: 2017-02-15
Packaged: 2018-09-24 14:32:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,655
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9762560
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/piggy09/pseuds/piggy09
Summary: Here is what no one understands: Helena made Sarah up herself.





	

_Don't you ever feel like you're just a story someone is telling about someone like you? I get that. I get you. You and me, we could fit inside each other._   


* * *

Here is what no one understands: Helena made Sarah up herself.

She never meant to. Helena just likes telling stories, has always liked it – in the dark of convent basements, in the dark of cellars, in the dark of cages. When she is just a child she sits tucked in a broom closet, feet underneath her, and holds Pupok in her hands.

_There is a girl_ , she whispers, _like me, only not like me. Somewhere out there. She hits people who want to hit her. She crashes through things. She’s so brave_.

_You’re an idiot_ , Pupok tells her, and leaves. But Helena likes the story. She sits there, hungry, and imagines it. The girl. Her girl. She’s brave, Helena knows that. She’s so brave. But she doesn’t know it. She thinks she’s too angry, and she’s sad. (Helena doesn’t know how to tell happy stories. She will never really learn how to do it.) She lives with a family (of course she does) but she doesn’t think she fits.

She’s brave, though. Helena knows that. She’s so brave.

Helena gets older and Helena dreams about the girl, dreams her up. She’s still a blurry unfinished shape but she’s angry; she is every angry part that Helena can’t hold onto, that she’s losing to the bottoms of wells. The girl, she spits and kicks and yells. She’s beautiful. She has a sis—

She has a brother, and she stands up for him. Helena dreams about her every time she falls asleep; she does it ferociously, she does it until she can make it real.

When Helena is sixteen she kills a girl with her face.

When Helena is sixteen Maggie gives her a folder with all sorts of girls with her face, copies, foul things. _They’re like me_ , Helena thinks, but that’s not true – they’re wrong, they’re flat paper copies. Helena has to wipe them out. They’re not like her.

Maggie shows her a map of Europe, all the places they have to clean. France-Germany-Belgium.

_What about that one,_ Helena says, pointing to an island called _Britain_.

Maggie goes very quiet. _There used to be one there_ , she says, _but they moved her, and we don’t know where she is._

_So Britain is safe_ , Helena says.

_Yes_ , Maggie says. _It’s not your mission._

But she doesn’t understand: Britain is _safe_. Britain is safe. Helena lies in the dark and considers it, the safe-shape of Britain. Ireland and Scotland and England. She picks up her dream-girl in her hands and moves her, carefully, to the island. She’s safe there. Because – Helena knows this now, or maybe she always knew this – the girl like her, she has Helena’s face. That’s how she is like-Helena but also not-like-Helena. But she isn’t like the others. Helena doesn’t know _how_ she isn’t like the others, but she knows it’s true.

She dreams about the girl on an island but she wakes up frightened anyways. What if that’s too close? Helena could get to England, she could get to Scotland, she could find Ireland easily and then she’d _know_ the girl isn’t real. So. She finds Maggie, Maggie hunched over an old groaning computer and glaring.

_Maggie_ , says Helena.

_What_ , says Maggie.

_Is there somewhere far away_ , Helena says. _Across the ocean._

_Helena_ , Maggie says, in that tone of voice that means she’s disappointed her. Helena doesn’t say anything.

_Canada_ , Maggie says, after more silence. _Why do you want to know that, anyways? We’re not done here, Helena._

_I wanted to see where to go,_ Helena says loyally, _when we are done here_. She’s lying. It feels strange; it feels like her girl kicking at her chest with big boots, laughing. Helena knows she’s pretty when she laughs. She doesn’t know what her own face looks like laughing, but she can imagine it. Beautiful, probably. Not Helena but beautiful.

She goes back down to the cellar floor and curls up. She’s still wide awake. She picks up the girl and moves her to Canada, fast – or maybe she was there the whole time, so Helena could _never_ have hurt her. She was in England but she moved when she was twelve, because twelve is the age when Tomas walked into the convent and told Helena she could be a weapon. That’s safe. That’s safe. Helena wouldn’t hurt her. Helena could never.

It’s not enough to keep her safe. Helena would have to kill her anyways. She curls up into a smaller ball, smaller, and keeps her eyes wide open – so much they hurt. What if the girl was Helena – no, that doesn’t make sense. Helena is Helena. What if – what if – Helena feels for her ribs, walks her fingers up the ladder of them. She doesn’t know how many there are supposed to be, but maybe it’s like the story about the garden. Maybe there was one of her and God took one rib, just one, and he made more of her. Maybe the girl is made out of the same piece of Helena. Maybe that way she’s safe.

The others are fingernail clippings and strands of hair, but Tomas would have told her if one of them was her ribs. So the girl is safe. The girl is a story, and she’s safe. Helena falls asleep.

* * *

She throws up in the bathroom on the way to Canada. She’s terrified. Canada is very big, she knows Canada is a very big cold place, but. But. Helena keeps telling this story to herself – the girl has grown up with her. When Helena wanted Maggie to be her mother she gave the girl a mother. When Helena saw babies for the first time and loved them she gave the girl a baby. Every time Helena has been kicked or hit or locked away, the girl hit back. This is going to break something. Going to Canada is going to ruin the only story Helena has ever told right.

Canada takes Maggie from her. Canada makes Helena’s bullets miss for the first time in her life, and then the second time. She knows none of these copies are her story, because Tomas knows their names, but at any second something could happen that could prove the story not real. She needs it she needs it she _needs_ it I’m not Beth.

Wait.

Underneath her Beth is shaking, and Beth speaks like a person from Scot-Ire-England would, and Beth is not Beth. Helena knows her. Impossible. But. True.

_Who are you,_ she says. Over and over: who are you. You’re not like the others, you’re special, you’re different, who _are_ you and the girl—

—the copy—

—the woman won’t say it. Helena just wants to know her name; she wants that face turned towards her saying _I know it was you, I know you dreamed me_. But the woman won’t tell her. Her skin is like ribs and the curves of her are like ribs and her fingers are like ribs, her hands, her knee when Helena puts her hand on it. She could be – they could be – but the woman won’t say it.

Helena has to almost kill her for it, just to hear her name.

In the ship she and Pupok sit and consider. _She’s a story_ , Helena says.

_I don’t think she knows_ , Pupok says. _Well. Looks like you got better at this with age, huh, kiddo._

_No one can see you,_ Helena says. _People can see her._

_Once you tell a story it stops being your story,_ Pupok says. _It’s everyone’s story_. And, apparently frightened by actually saying something wise, the scorpion hastily adds: _Idiot._

_Is everyone telling her?_ Helena says. _Does everyone know that she’s just a story?_

_Don’t tell them,_ Pupok says. _You’re the only one who knows._

* * *

Helena doesn’t tell any of them. She dreams Sarah brave. She dreams Sarah strong. She dreams Sarah fighting. Sarah pulls the trigger on her, but: Helena made her to hit back, didn’t she? How could she be mad? Everyone loves Sarah so much – how could Helena be mad at them for that? She loves Sarah too, that’s why she made her. Every lovable piece of Helena that Helena could find she gave to Sarah; every lovable thing from the world around her she gave to Sarah. She dug out her own sharpsoft parts and put them in a dream and the dream spat them out in Sarah’s dream and now Sarah has a family, and they all love her. They all love her so much.

Would they love Helena, if they knew? They love Sarah. They would probably love Helena, if they knew that Sarah was made of her rib and her dreams and her longing. Wouldn’t they? Wouldn’t they have to?

_Do you ever feel like a story_ , Helena whispers to Sarah in the dark.

_It’s two in the morning, meathead_ , Sarah sighs. She rolls over. _No, I don’t feel like a bloody story._

_What if you were,_ Helena whispers. _Maybe you are a story that somebody else is telling, and they are telling it because they love you very much._

Silence. _If they loved me they’ve sure got a shitty way of showing it,_ Sarah says. _G’night, Helena._

Helena lies there with her mouth open, something angry surging at her throat. She wants to say: I do love you. I made you brave enough to hurt everyone who ever wanted to hurt you. Isn’t that enough? You have a family who loves you, you have something to fight for, you have fists to fight it with. What more could I give you? I don’t have anything else.

She doesn’t say any of that. She rolls over so her back is to Sarah. She goes back to dreaming Sarah brave.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! Please kudos + comment if you enjoyed! :)


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